It was Katelyn Klee’s connection to Irvine Valley College — and a lucky break at an IVC job fair — that helped her land a job as a “Skipper” for Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise.
Now Katelyn is poised to become IVC’s first-ever participant in the Disney Aspire program, which makes it possible for her as a Disney employee to transfer to California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) with her tuition, fees, and books completely paid for. Katelyn hopes to eventually graduate from pointing out the faux crocodiles and monkeys on the Jungle Cruise to working with real life animals as a trained veterinarian.
Although the pieces are falling into place for Katelyn to live out her dreams, she’s quick to point out her academic journey hasn't been a straight line. Katelyn credits the tuition support from IVC's Promise Program as well as the college’s academic counselors for providing crucial guidance during her formative college years, which came in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and involved a change in major and a few bumps along the way.
“(Entering college) was a scary time,” she recalls. “I didn’t know if I wanted to go to a university because they were shut down and classes were online, but you would still be paying full tuition for online classes. It didn’t make sense to me. I got accepted into the Promise Program, which was great because I spent my first two years taking the units I needed for transfer, and I didn’t have to pay for anything, including textbooks, which was amazing.”
Katelyn says one of the biggest challenges initially was “having to navigate my education and just being in charge of the courses I take.”
“In high school, you get set on a path and you know what you’ll be taking,” she adds, “whereas in college, you’re in charge of your own schedule. You have to figure out what courses are available and which professors to take. What helped make that easier was my counselors. I saw them every time I needed to register for classes. I would make sure to go in to have a quick 10-minute appointment.”
Katelyn eventually decided to switch gears from majoring in history to pursuing an associate’s degree in biology, driven by her deep-seated passion for animals.
“Learning about all the small things that we can’t see — from how our cells work to how our nerves react — I think that’s really interesting,” she says. “The labs at IVC were pretty engaging, and it was very cool to be able to look through a microscope and see cells and all the stuff that is happening.”
Despite facing a demanding course load (including integrated biology, general chemistry, and pre-calculus, alongside commitments to band and part-time work), Katelyn says she has learned to juggle priorities and manage her time effectively.
“Sometimes you have to take it a day at a time,” she advises. “You prioritize your education if you can, but also enjoy what time you have.
Katelyn also strongly encourages students to refrain from enrolling in more than a full course load if they can avoid it — “and I learned that the hard way,” she admits.
“I learned that I need time to organize my brain and decompress,” adds Katelyn. “I had no time; It was constantly ‘go, go, go!’ and I couldn’t sit down and enjoy life. The result was me having to withdraw from one of my courses.”
Although it seemed like a failure at the time, Katelyn says she now sees dropping the class as merely a blip in the context of her greater higher education experience. “You have the opportunity to try again,” she says. “That’s the good thing about making your own schedule as a college student.”
Looking ahead, Katelyn’s goal is to be able to transfer from IVC to CSUF with all of her chemistry and math courses complete, while meanwhile charting a course of a different kind at Disneyland, “working the entire time to save money and help my mom.”